


Nobody Kills You But...

by alternatedoom



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Unresolved Tension, Warcraft Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5717815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatedoom/pseuds/alternatedoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the World of Warcraft kink meme. Prompt was: "Anduin lives through the Divine Bell incident, and other near Horde incidents, and if you've read War Crimes, even saves Garrosh's life. So I really need/want to read Garrosh realizing all this and either constantly showing up to save Anduin's life because 'Only he's allowed to kill the prince' or even just having this sixth 'Anduin should be about to die' sense and showing up to make sure he's not just the only one failing to kill this tiny and pathetic whelp.</p><p>Awkward respect, disgusted romance, frenemies loved.</p><p>Can be cracky or serious or heartbreaking, honestly I see it being all at once :D"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Kills You But...

"Discretion is paramount," Nazgrim had told them after he took them aside to give them their instructions, and at the time Shokia had thought the comment unnecessary. All those bright enough to rise through the ranks of intelligence for the Horde army treated confidential faction business with discretion, and none more so than the Horde's top spies.

But now, concealed by leafy camoflage, rather scratchy leaves at that, sitting uncomfortably in a tree near the Tavern in the Mists, she understood why Nazgrim had stated something seemingly so obvious, and she wanted very much to discuss the issue at hand with someone. Anyone. She glanced reluctantly at Kagtha, the partner with whom she'd been dispatched. Shokia took her work seriously and would never betray the Horde by violating the secrecy of a hush-hush mission. But that meant there was no one she could talk to besides Kagtha, or Nazgrim, next time she saw him.

The Tavern had translucent screen windows in the traditional pandaren style, opaque enough to prevent surveillance. However, the window they most wanted to look through was swung wide open both day and night, making it easy, with the aid of a spyglass, to perch in the branches of a tree and clearly see the two young men sitting at a table inside, playing a card game. One of them, the one who blithely opened the window of nearly every room he entered, was dressed in white and blue. Their 'target.' 

Ugh.

Shokia lowered the spyglass, telescoped it shut, and rubbed at the irritated skin of her arms. She wouldn't mind the cold rain or the scratchy, itchy leaves if the mission was something important. "We should be back at Domination Point," she lamented.

Kagtha shook her head, fiddling with the buttons on her communicator and locating device, a piece of newfangled goblin tech. "No."

"But this-- what are we _doing_ here?"

"Following the warchief's command," Kagtha said stoically.

"But this is..." Shokia sighed. "This doesn't feel backwards to you?"

"We have our orders," Kagtha said, but her stiff manner told Shokia that Kagtha had her own set of doubts. "No harm is to come to Anduin Wrynn. At the first hint of danger, we contact Nazgrim." Kagtha twisted the dials on the communicator back and forth as if they frustrated her, but the faint static coming from the device did not diminish.

"But he's the Alliance prince," Shokia protested. "We came to Pandaria to wipe the Alliance off the map. Shouldn't we be killing him, rather than scurrying around and hiding in trees secretly guarding him? Who cares if or how he dies? We should be trying to make him dead!"

"The warchief orders otherwise."

Shokia knew then she would get nowhere with Kagtha, and her partner did have a point. The warchief's commands were sacrosanct. Whatever he wanted, it was undoubtedly for a good reason. Probably the warchief wanted to end the Alliance prince personally and just hadn't found the time to get away from his duties yet. She didn't enjoy feeling like a wasted resource, but who was she to question the warchief? "You're right," she agreed, sighing.

"The eyes of Hellscream are upon you," Kagtha said tersely, indicating the conversation was over.

"The eyes of Hellscream are upon you," Shokia echoed, and she wiped the dripping rain off her forehead again. Adjusting the telescope, she raised the spyglass back to her eye. She couldn't tell which one was winning, but the two drinking and playing cards in the warm, snug tavern below were definitely having a lot more fun than she was.

*

The first time, the location was a mess of seemingly abandoned ruins in Krasarang that were in fact occupied by an entire clan of relic-hunting mogu.

She and Kagtha had been temporarily relieved of their furtive guard duties for a day-long furlough, but Nazgrim summoned her anyway when their replacements apparently called for backup. Shokia had no idea where Kagtha was, but she and Garrosh and Nazgrim and a handful of others flew with speed to the swampy deepwilds of Krasarang, and Garrosh led a group of them into the ruins in the nick of time to find the runty human, who was by then surrounded and cornered against a broken statue. Perched secretly and silently on the shoulders of the statue were the stand-in guards, ready to jump down and sacrifice their lives defending him.

Shokia followed the warchief as Garrosh charged in, but he not only failed to kill the Alliance prince in his onslaught, but actually intervened to _save his life_ , putting himself between the mogu and the alarmed prince when he could have killed both the head mogu and the prince in a single blow.

Shokia wasn't sure what to think about that. Maybe Garrosh wanted to have his full attention on the human, and vice versa, when he sank Gorehowl into that little blond skull? Perhaps because the prince had ruined the Divine Bell, the warchief planned some special, more elaborate revenge before Prince Anduin died painfully? Shokia didn't know, but her focus was seized by the incensed mogu in front of her trying its best to kill her, and she forgot her questions as she did her part fighting.

After the last wounded and enraged mogu was slaughtered, Garrosh and the Alliance prince stood a dozen feet apart, facing each other on the gentle swell of the hill. Shokia and Nazgrim and the others hovered behind him, waiting, and Shokia breathed a sigh of relief through her nose. Finally, Garrosh would end this strange charade of protecting a sworn enemy, and she could go back to Domination Point and scout and organize the killing of Alliance scum, kill some herself, spend her breaktimes giving Tuskripper Grukna _ideas_ , and generally have life back to normal.

But it didn't happen.

"You're mine, boy, and I am going to crush you," Garrosh declared, and he pointed at Anduin menacingly, but instead of advancing on the prince, he turned away and stalked to the nearby steps.

Shokia stood stock-still, completely bewildered for a moment. When she recovered she turned to Nazgrim, who was frowning at the prince. "General," she whispered. "What just happened?"

Nazgrim sighed.

The prince of the Alliance looked as confused as she felt.

"GENERAL!" Garrosh barked, a dozen paces ahead of them already and descending almost out of sight, and instead of answering Shokia's question, Nazgrim hastened after the warchief.

For a moment the prince's puzzled blue eyes met hers, and Shokia shrugged at him. Then she nodded farewell to her substitutes, turned and followed her fellow soldiers and her commanders down the steps.

*

Later, she approached Nazgrim and tried to ask about their mission. 

"General, a word?"

"Go ahead," Nazgrim said warily, as if he knew what was coming.

"You know I live and die at the pleasure of the warchief," Shokia began. "But I --"

"Good," Nazgrim interrupted. "As do we all. So tomorrow you and Kagtha will return to your assigned duty." But he looked at her a second longer and sighed. "Never question your orders," he said, and from the poorly hidden bemusement on his face, Shokia knew the instruction was meant as much to himself as to her. "The eyes of Hellscream are upon you," he added soberly.

Shokia bowed her head.

*

The next time it was mantid. She and Kagtha knew they could not handle more than a couple of the vicious insectoid monsters alone, and the creatures commonly traveled in swarms, so when Anduin headed into mantid territory in the Dread Wastes, Kagtha immediately grabbed her communicator and called for backup. More troops came along this time, Shokia was gratified to see, a mix of grunts and Kor'kron, a suitable number to take on a slew of mantid.

But she also noticed, and she wasn't sure if Nazgrim or Garrosh himself arranged it this way, that when the battle was over, almost all of the troops ended up a short distance away from Garrosh and the Alliance prince.

"You pathetic human," Garrosh snarled after the mantid were all dead, but Shokia thought he looked oddly... torn. During the melee he'd shoved Anduin out of harm's way, and Anduin had stumbled backwards to relative safety and fallen onto his ass in the dirt. Garrosh looked at him, hesitated, then turned. "There are more to kill to the south!" he bellowed.

"Grunts! To the warchief!" Nazgrim shouted, and to cries of "For the Horde!" the soldiers standing a bit away began to hoof it after Garrosh as he headed off.

Kagtha craned her head in stunned disbelief, though she kept her voice pitched low. "But-- he's defenseless... and alone! The rest of the mantid are a half-mile off! Why isn't the warchief--?"

"Told you so," Shokia whispered. Kagtha had looked at her like she was imagining things when she'd relayed the story of what happened with the mogu in Krasarang. As bizarre as this turn of events was, it was nice to be proved right.

Prince Anduin was looking at them.

"He's going to think we're incompetent," Kagtha hissed.

"Why do you care what a human thinks?" Shokia said mockingly, not bothering to lower her voice now that Garrosh and the rest of the troops had moved off and only she and Kagtha and Nazgrim remained.

"If this is a pattern and the warchief continues to _not_ bash his brains in, he'll be king of Stormwind someday! The enemy must fear us! He'll have cause to laugh at --"

"Silence, both of you," Nazgrim demanded. "Do not speak of matters that do not concern you. Now, to the mantid!" Then he stopped and reconsidered, as if he'd realized a mistake. "No," he said slowly. "Wait, no. You two stay here." With a last, mournful glance at Anduin, Nazgrim hurtled off.

The prince just sat on the ground where Garrosh had saved his life, taking it all in. When Nazgrim was gone, he stood up and brushed himself off, then walked over to them. Kagtha tensed and dropped a hand to her blade, but the prince's look was friendly and as open as his windows, and he did not seem intimidated by the threatening gesture.

"So, about Garrosh," he began awkwardly in Orcish, like he wasn't sure of his words, or like it was going to be a question.

Kagtha interrupted, her voice sharp. "That's Warchief Hellscream to you."

The prince looked apologetic. "Excuse me, of course. Warchief Hellscream," he amended, and his Orcish was surprisingly passable, but he didn't seem to know what to say after that, just looked at them awkwardly.

"Yeah," Kagtha said uncomfortably.

Anduin eyed the mob of orcs charging towards their second battle of the day in the valley below. "Am I free to go?" he asked.

Kagtha and Shokia exchanged glances. "Yeah," Kagtha said.

"But we're going to follow you," Shokia sighed.

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "I kind of expected that."

*

A few times later, they defended the Alliance prince in the Valley of the Four Winds from a pack of Longfang wolves whose den he appeared to have wandered into, and after Garrosh threw out a parting insult and left the scene, Shokia went up to Prince Anduin. "Are you trying to die all the time?"

"No," Anduin said. "I just like going on adventures."

"By yourself? Into the most dangerous parts of Pandaria?"

Anduin shrugged.

*

The next time Anduin got in trouble was in the Jade Forest, and Garrosh saved him with just her and Nazgrim and Kagtha present. At the conclusion of the scuffle with some giant wasps, their warchief was confronting the prince a little ways away from them on the bank of a wide stream, probably proclaiming a threatening one-liner or jibe as usual, Shokia thought, but then he took two strides forward up the bank, ending up inches away from the prince, looking down at him with _heat_ in his gaze.

Shokia stared open-mouthed. Suddenly the events of the past few weeks all made sense-- kind of, in a mad-world, reality-turned-upside-down kind of way. "Do they have a-- are they-- !?"

"Remember your vows," Nazgrim mumbled beside her, but when she looked sideways at him incredulously, she saw he was staring at his warchief and the Alliance prince with an expression of fears confirmed.

"Come on," Nazgrim muttered, and took her arm and snapped his fingers at Kagtha, who appeared comatose. "Remember your vows. You live and die at the pleasure of the warchief. His will is your will, and you are the hand of his Horde. Lok'tar ogar..." Nazgrim coughed and trailed off.

"Blood and thunder. For the Horde," Shokia said weakly.

On Nazgrim's other side, Kagtha had revived and begun ranting under her breath. "All it would take is one blow! Not even that strong a blow, he's tiny! Not even that, all it would take is not intervening! Not intervening over and over and over again!"

Nazgrim patted her shoulder, not unsympathetically.

*

On the steeply sloping bank of the stream, Anduin stood higher up than Garrosh, yet Garrosh still came out taller, and the menace emanated off him in waves. They were more alone than usual, with General Nazgrim and the two orc women who'd been trailing him around the continent a little ways away.

"You get into more trouble, boy," Garrosh began ominously.

"And you follow me right into that trouble, I've noticed," Anduin said, raising his eyebrows, inviting Garrosh to explain himself. "I won't pretend I haven't been wondering why?"

Garrosh opened his eyes wide, exposing all of his golden irises, sharp and dangerous and daring Anduin to piss him off. "Because nobody kills you but me," he said.

"But then you don't," Anduin pointed out.

"I will," Garrosh swore in a growl, and Anduin would have been fearful if Garrosh hadn't already shown up out of nowhere to save his life on seven, no, eight separate occasions now. Nine? "I'm going to paint Gorehowl with your blood," Garrosh promised darkly. "I'm going to send your corpse back to your father in _pieces_."

Anduin slightly narrowed his eyes, curiously. "Are you?" he asked, his tone suggesting he doubted it. 

The sight of Garrosh with his small eyes rounded open and his teeth bared could probably have scared off the Riverblade saurok, the angry snapclaws, the Mistveil Sea sharks in a feeding frenzy, the Osul who were going to ritually sacrifice him, and all the rest with neither weapon nor Horde backup troops, but Anduin refused to be perturbed by his showy displays of aggression. There was something deeper going on here. He added confidently, "Because it seems like you don't actually want me dead."

"Don't push me, whelp," Garrosh warned. He suddenly took two long strides forward and up, bringing them very close, towering over him once again, though with Anduin still positioned higher on the bank, they were closer in height than they ever were on even ground. A strange, confused expression came over Garrosh's face.

Anduin stared up at him, too frozen even to swallow against the lump in his throat, or to encase himself within a shield of Light. For a second Anduin thought perhaps Garrosh did intend to kill him after all, and as they stared at each other for three disbelieving, dumbstruck seconds after that he thought Garrosh was going to _kiss_ him. Could orcs even kiss, with those far-protruding tusks and inch-long canines pointing outwards?

But Garrosh didn't kiss him or attack him either. Garrosh didn't move. However, the confusion vanished, or gave way to something even beyond confusion. A struggle with his emotions was taking place visibly upon his face; he was gazing down at Anduin with his expression warring between a half-smile and a twisted moue of revulsion, twitching back and forth between fondness and profound horror. He looked almost affectionate, and he looked appalled.

"Garrosh?" Anduin said blankly, wonderingly. He realized his jaw was slack, and he closed his mouth, astonished. 

"Go home, you puny... you," Garrosh said gruffly, and with a crunching noise he jerked his axe free from the carapace of the last wasp and left Anduin staring after him.

Anduin agreeably got back on his gryphon and headed back to Lion's Landing for the night. 

But a few days later in the week, he went to bed early to be sure he got a sound sleep, because he'd heard about an ice cave in Kun-Lai he wanted to explore. Something about icicles that glittered like diamonds and stayed frozen longer than normal when brought into a warm clime. Somehow he didn't think he needed to worry about the yetis.

**Author's Note:**

> "Nobody kills you but me" is of course from _Wolverine: Origins_.


End file.
